Midweek

It’s another cool spring day, with wind (which transforms the day to “need a coat”) and overcast.  More rain is forecast later this week, but right now it’s just gloomy.  I don’t mind the rain, as it leads to displays like this (from my friend’s garden in Hamilton)  Jerry is sitting contentedly watching his support worker as she’s cooking supper.  He had a few happy wriggles and barks and got his tummy rubbed, so he’s fine with people in his space.  Don was dealing with some pain again, but it is at its worst when he first wakes up, and improves a bit through the day.  His team won the last game of the year (when it no longer matters) and he’s happy that they did.

I took a sleep aid last night and slept for 9 solid hours, but I’m feeling a bit groggy today, so there’s that trade off.  We’ll try the early night again — without the pill — and hopefully it’s a successful experiment.  I had some (frozen) Chinese today — from my sister’s last visit — and we’re making supper.  I was teaching my support worker to make coocoo, stewed chicken and lentils, so she has some more Trinidadian recipes to make for me.  I was in the kitchen for the start of cooking, but needed to sit for the actual cooking because I ran out of energy.  Dinner will be yummy!  🤤 

I saw a news item this week of a woman who had started receiving aggressive chemotherapy before being told that she did not, in fact, have cancer.  That’s in stark contrast to the many stories of people who reported that their cancer went undiagnosed despite repeated doctor’s visits.  I — and I’m sure pretty much everyone reading this — have stories of how doctors ignored symptoms that I reported, or dismissed my concerns.  (I’ll just note here that this does not apply to my medical team for the last 12 years, who are awesome.  In fact, in the years that I’ve been dealing with them I’ve only met about 4 people who I hope never to encounter again out of the literally hundreds who’ve looked after me!)  Today I got an article from a doctor talking about “stigmatizing language” which often appears in medical reports, and which can affect the treatment that a patient receives.  For instance, a report might say that a patient is difficult or exaggerating symptoms, which may affect the treatment they receive.  There also may be comments or judgments based on racial/ethic profiles — there are some awful stories about indigenous Canadians who are ignored in emergency rooms because it’s assumed that they’re drunk; or of people of colour who are designated as malingering and not taken seriously.  Anyway, the report looked at patients who were admitted to hospital whose condition led to them being in the ICU or who died within 48 hours of admission; it showed that over 22% had diagnostic errors and that stigmatizing language appeared to lead to errors about twice as much as other factors.  

That was stunning.  I know that a lot of people complain about the “PC police” and the “woke brigade” for pushing people to not use discriminatory language or otherwise insult others.  But in reality, using language that labels a patient as “difficult” or “malingering” might lead to a missed or poor diagnosis and to the death of a patient… and other research shows that dismissive language can affect hiring, housing, education… It’s not about — or not only about — self esteem, but rather about ensuring the dignity of humans, and having equitable treatment.  I’ll stop here; my soapbox is too easy to use.  Besides, dinner smells awesome, and I’m getting hungry.  Good night!